It costs only $2,000 to produce, and the galleries it publicizes are mostly far from the expensive Pearl District core with whom the art world is best associated. But the quirky glossy foldout advertising an emerging crop of local galleries and venues may offer a glimpse of the struggling Portland art scene's future, one that may be dramatically different from the white cubed spaces dedicated to traditional art objects.

Called "A Portland Conversation," the quarterly flier may reflect a new generation of aesthetics with its idiosyncratic design fashioned by Scott Ponik. But it abides by convention in other ways. It concisely lists a rotating group of 12 galleries and venues, their contact information and current and forthcoming shows.

While populated mostly by eastside galleries, its focus is less geographic and more a matter of taste and approach, a distinction further drawn by a recession claiming many art businesses.

Another DIY story
Started by Jeanine Jablonski, owner of Fourteen30 Contemporary, Patrick Rock of Rocksbox and graphic designer Ponik, "A Portland Conversation" looks like a response to the monthly First Thursday guide.

It is and isn't.

There have been several attempts to produce a comprehensive gallery guide. But most have either failed to launch or have simply failed to capture the energy, aesthetics and broadness of the city's emerging artists and art players.

Frustrated, Jablonski and Rock teamed up with Ponik and assembled a guide that would highlight their businesses and other similar-minded venues they thought were instrumental to Portland's art ecology, including the nonprofit galleryHomeland.

Though cheap to produce and a reflection of Portland's community-minded, DIY ethos, the flier is exclusive in some ways: Participation is by invitation only. And those are doled out by the three founders.

Fredrick D. Joe/The OregonianPatrick Rock of Rocksbox

Capturing a divide
Still, as the title suggests, the guide has succeeded in ways beyond cheaply advertising underexposed art venues. It's initiated a serious conversation about the city's galleries and the future of its emerging art dealers, specifically Jablonski, Rock, Leslie Miller and Jess Fogel of Fontanelle Gallery and Ruth Ann Brown of the New American Art Union.

It's taken decades for Portland to grow a modern and contemporary art scene with a healthy art gallery system that includes more than 60 reliable galleries and venues. For much of the past 20-plus years, the exclusive Portland Art Dealers Association has dominated, pushing First Thursday and exhibiting and selling the work of the scene's major artists.

The dealers in the art association, often referred to as PADA, are mostly baby boomers in their 50s and 60s. The youngest is the 29 year-old Brown, the rare eastside dealer to have ever been asked to join the invitation-only PADA group. Beyond forcing two of its dealers to shutter their businesses the past year, the recession also has amplified PADA's aging demographic and who might be able to regenerate it in the future.

"Right now, there's a huge vacuum between dealers in their 30s and those in their 50s and 60s," Brown says.

Various galleries run by younger dealers have surfaced in Portland the past decade -- Small A Projects, Motel and Gallery 500 were among the most prominent. But each dealer closed shop or moved away from Portland.

The core dealers behind "A Portland Conversation," however, appear to have staying power. They also suggest the future won't be defined by traditional alliances and business models, a reflection of the many new layers of artistic, social and commercial activity of the past decade.

Jumping over convention
On the surface, the programming at each of the core galleries behind "Conversation" represents a flourishing movement. Jablonski, 31, represents the city's exchange with the West Coast and European art scenes, for instance. Rock, 41, expands on the increasing prominence of installation and performance here. Miller, 29, and Fogel, 30, mine the city's underground skater culture, while Brown champions some of the region's best contemporary artists. Collectively, the programming differs from the traditionally based exhibits and artists that show at the high-end PADA galleries.

Jablonski says she and her peers have been influenced by distinctive gallery models outside the city. Those models tend to be more hybrid and experimental, reflecting a generation shaped by the evolution of '90s indie culture into a do-it-yourself movement that prizes experience rather than the production and ownership of objects.

Rock, for example, doesn't want to represent artists. He's chosen independence in order to simply show all of the artists he likes. Brown may be an art association member, but her approach is strictly her own -- even historic for a local dealer: She gave 10 Portland-area artists the chance to show a special project of their choosing funded entirely by the gallery. None of the work is for sale.

"They say art is a luxury," says Brown, a Michigan native. "Actually, owning it is a luxury. We look at what the ecology will be in the future, not what objects to sell in the future."

Many of the galleries in the art association, such as Elizabeth Leach Gallery, have long cultivated international connections. But as a group, theirs is a Northwest-focused perspective, while the core dealers in "Conversation" embrace millennium-era Portland's belief that the city is merely part of the larger world.

"We see our programming as directly taking a place in the larger art world, not just the regional one," Jablonski says.

What's radical?
These differing perspectives may sound radical, but they aren't. It's just about change, Rock says.

"The first galleries I went to were the ones in the Portland Art Dealers Association," Rock says. "I love them. The new serious galleries, whomever they are, will be different from them, but they always are. Jamison Thomas Gallery was radically different from The Fountain."

So, with all of these differences between two generations of dealers, is there competition?

Brown says there isn't. After all, she's part of both groups. And besides, PADA also is courting new members outside familiar zones -- one of them is Jablonski's gallery, which was invited to join the group Tuesday -- in response to a recession that may do further damage. Jablonski says she wants to accept PADA's invitation, but the group would not confirm its invitation because president Charles Froelick was out of town.

Still, the veteran dealers haven't actively mentored other dealers, including the new Young Turks on the scene.

"We've tried to reach out to other organizations and spaces," Jablonski says. "But they don't have time. When you've been around for 30 years, maybe you don't have time to deal with that. We have all of this energy and idealism. I guess ask me what it will be like 15 years from now."